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If I wasn’t a rabbi, what would I be? If I were to lose my rabbinic learning, training, experience and practice, what would be left? My identity as a father? A husband? A friend? What if those were lost as well? The question is not academic in these days of dementia and strokes. Would I still be me? Or something else? A different person?
The Rogachover Gaon, Rabbi Yosef Rosen (1858-1936, Latvia), provides perspective on this question in an involved analysis that begins in Parashat Tzav. The Torah tells us (Vayikra 7:18):
ואם האכל יאכל מבשר־זבח שלמיו ביום השלישי לא ירצה המקריב אתו לא יחשב לו פגול יהיה והנפש האכלת ממנו עונה תשא
If any of the flesh of the shlamim sacrifice is eaten on the third day, it shall not be acceptable; it shall not count for the one who offered it. It is an offensive thing, and the person who eats of it shall bear the guilt.
The simple read: if a person eats their shelamim (celebratory-offering) after the time designated for consumption, the sacrifice is invalid. Our sages, however, present a different interpretation (Bavli, Zevachim 29a). The sacrifice becomes invalid, they argue, only if someone intends from the outset to eat it outside of its designated time. This is the principle of pigul.
Based on this, the Talmud asks (Zevachim 7a), what happens if you mistakenly slaughter a todah (thanksgiving-offering) thinking that it is a shlamim? A standard shlamim is eaten for two days and one night (Vayikra 7:16). A todah, however, can only be eaten for one day and one night (Vayikra 7:15). Prima facie, this should constitute pigul since we intend to eat it outside of the designated time. On the other hand, the Torah categorizes the todah as a type of shlamim (Vayikra 7:11-12). Perhaps, therefore, the sacrifice hasn’t been totally misconstrued.
The Rogachover (Tzafnath Paane’ach Tinyana, 68b) notes that in one place (Zevachim 7a), the Gemara says that a todah slaughtered as a shlamim is kosher. Elsewhere (Menachot 49a), however, it says that a chatat (sin-offering) that is slaughtered as a shlamim is pigul. Rashi explains that this is because you intended to eat it outside the designated time. This should be true of a todah/shlamim mix-up as well.
The solution, writes the Rogachover, is a third source. He writes,
מבואר במנחות דף מ”ו ודמ”ז ע”ב דאם לאחר שחיטת התודה נפרס הלחם אז פקע ממנו שם תודה ונעשה שלמים וא”כ יש פעול’ שהתוד’ אף לאחר שחיט’ תתהו’ שלמים ושוב אז נאכל לשנ”י כו’… לכך יכול לשחוט תודה לשם שלמים שיש מציאות שהתודה תהי’ שלמים.
In Menachot 46b it explains that if the bread is broken after the todah is slaughtered, then it loses the name todah and reverts to being a shlamim. Therefore, it can be eaten for two days…Thus it is possible to slaughter a todah as a shlamim and it may revert to being a shlamim.
In other words, the todah has layers of identity. If it loses the identity of thanksgiving, it reverts to its more general identity: shlamim (celebration). Thus to slaughter a todah as a shlamim is not pigul because at least once the two are identical.
The Rogachover applies this idea of layered identity to argue that a priest who has invalidated their priesthood (כהן חלל) reverts to Levitical status and a high-priest who loses his identity reverts to the identity of a standard priest.
This returns us to our original question, if I was to lose the layer of my identity that I have built over my adult life, what will be left of me? This principle of layered identity gives me hope that even if my adult contributions are negated, the spiritual, moral, and intellectual molding of my parents will remain. This echoes the principle of memory loss cited by geriatricians: first in, last out. Our earliest memories, skills, and education remain longest when everything else has fallen away.
There are twenty-three days until Pesach. In these three weeks, let’s work to establish a layer of Jewish identity beneath the veneer of intellectualism and orthopraxis that so often take center stage at this time. Let’s ask ourselves how we can make Pesach a fundamental identity building experience for our children. If we don’t have children, for whom can we create an identity affirming experience? Friends? Strangers? Ourselves? We’ve seen that Jewish identity is multi-layered. This Pesach, let’s build from the bottom.
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